Archive

Quotes

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

—Henrik Ibsen, 1882

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

—Anacharsis, c. 550 BC

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

—Walter Bagehot, 1863

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

—David Foster Wallace, 2000

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

—Al Smith, 1933

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

—Laozi, c. 500 BC

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867